1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a commutator for supplying electric power to an armature winding of a rotary electric machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
JP-A-Hei-10-162923 or its counterpart U.S. Pat. No. 6,114,791 discloses a flat type commutator that is constituted of a plurality of fan shaped commutator segments circumferentially disposed on a flat insulating member.
Such a segment is usually manufactured as follows. At first, a conductive disk member is prepared, and a plurality of terminal members is welded to the disk member at equal intervals to form a commutator unit. At the next step, this commutator unit is put into a molding die, and liquid insulating material is poured into the molding die to form an insulating member fixing and insulating the commutator unit. In this step, it is difficult to prevent the insulating material from sticking to nails of the terminal members, to which armature coils of a rotary electric machine are to be respectively connected. Therefore, it is necessary to remove the insulating material from the terminal members at a subsequent step, which increases production cost.